Wednesday, July 16, 2014

The Express Wins Six Awards in National Contest

Wed, Jul 16, 2014 at 10:55 AM

The Express has won six awards for journalism excellence in the Association of Alternative Newsmedia’s 2014 national contest. The Express won the most awards of any alt-weekly in California, and tied for the third most honors nationwide among all alt-weeklies. In all, the Express took home one first-place, two second-place, and three third-place awards.

Former staffer Azeen Ghorayshi won first place in the long-form news category for her May 1, 2013 cover story, “Warning: Quake in Sixty Seconds.” Her report focused on technology that would create an early-warning system for earthquakes in California. Contributor Vanessa Rancaño won second place in the same category for her August 21, 2013 cover story, “Waste: The Dark Side of the New Coffee Craze,” which revealed that the single-cup brewing coffee market is producing massive amounts of trash nationwide.

Former staffer Rachel Swan won second place in the economic inequality reporting category for her May 8, 2013 cover story, “Debtor's Purgatory.” It examined a troubling aspect of our court system in which people who can’t afford to hire their own lawyer are being steamrolled by banks and debt collection companies.

And contributor Ellen Cushing won third place in the arts feature category for her March 20, 2013, cover story, “The Bacon-Wrapped Economy,” which examined the impacts that young rich tech workers have had on the Bay Area’s cultural landscape.

The contest winners, which were announced last weekend, were selected as the most outstanding from a field of more 900 entries submitted by 77 alternative publications in the United States and Canada. All of the Express’ awards were in the under-50,000 circulation category.